FULL COUNCIL DEBATE

Just a quick post to follow on from Councillor Temple's last piece,there is indeed a paper up before the Special meeting of the Council which is being circulated today( Friday).

I certainly think it is worth everyone letting your councillor( or MP) know how you feel on this issue but I am also sure that the local councillors are fully behind our efforts on Shotley Bridge Hospital.
After all as we can point out in the paper below we have been willing to find money to support services and invest in research on the future of the hospital because we know, that is what the community wants to see and we know local councillors will back that.

If there is something happening we don't agree with. then we will let the health trusts know but I feel we also have to be prepared to work with the health sector and anyone else who can support the services in Shotley Bridge Hospital. Our GPs and County colleagues are supporting the hospital and that has to be a good start.
This might be a bit dry but please give it a try!


1 PURPOSE OF REPORT

1.1 The County Durham Primary Care Trust has circulated a paper entitled: Agreeing the future of Shotley Bridge Community Hospital (see attached) and have invited the District Council to take part in a stakeholder working group which will develop the future plans for Shotley Bridge Hospital.

1.2 The other stakeholders to be involved will include the County Durham and Darlington Foundation Trust, Durham County Council and representatives from staff, patients and public. The draft statement attached to this paper also identifies the principles which the PCT would wish to see all participants support at the outset of this process and outlined below are the issues which members may wish to consider.


2 BACKGROUND

2.1 The position of the District Council toward joint working on Shotley Bridge Hospital has been consistent for some time. In the recent past we have played a part in securing funding for both the two Tribal reports and the cost of maintaining the day surgery unit at Shotley Bridge Hospital which came under threat of closure in 2006.
The Derwentside Partnership supported these positions and allocated funding to ensure this work took place.

2.2 Since that work began we have been heavily involved with partner organisations during the preparation of the Tribal Consultants’ reports, playing a very active role in their development.
That joint working has afforded the authority the chance to advance the community’s views on the future of the hospital and those views are certainly reflected within both reports.

3. JOINT WORKING AND WIDER STAKEHOLDER
INVOLVEMENT

3.1 The Council now has the opportunity to consider moving onto a more formal footing with a broader based stakeholder group which will take forward the reports’ recommendations on appropriate service developments at the hospital

3.2 The District Council welcomes the involvement of staff, public and patients which we would see as part of a positive process bringing greater community representation to the stakeholder board: There may be an opportunity for the Council to play a direct role in developing that involvement, the authority was recently successful in a bid for funds from the Communities for Health programme which included within the submission an amount for training members of the public to develop their role in shaping the future of local hospital services.


4 THE FUTURE FOR THE HOSPITAL

4.1 There is still in our view something of a missed opportunity to allay the undoubted widespread concerns over the future of the hospital. The PCT and Foundation Trusts are of course immersed currently in the creation of the strategic five year plans referred to in the draft statement which are to be complete by April 2008.Whilst it is welcomed that there is a commitment to maintaining current services at Shotley Bridge Hospital until the completion of those plans, the District Council (along with GP and County Council representatives) have requested the statement includes a longer term commitment to the hospital.

4.2 Whilst members will no doubt wish to support the positive commitments made in the statement and in particular welcome the extra investment by commissioners into the services highlighted in the statement, it is proposed the Council’s position on the future of Shotley Bridge is clear.
Based on the information currently available to us (the Tribal reports and the Derwentside Cluster: Practice Commissioning Plan) the Council believe the hospital should be given the opportunity to build upon its current role to become a vibrant community hospital to serve a district with some of the most severe health problems in the country. And in order to fulfil that role, we would continue to maintain that the proposed working group should give serious consideration to the issue of alternative ownership models for the site.

4.3 Members may also wish to consider that given the significance placed by the Foundation Trust and the PCT on their respective five year plans it is clearly essential that we gain an understanding of how they are likely to impact on local service provision and if possible acquire a role in their production. We were heartened to note that Louise Robson highlighted the Foundation Trust’s desire to engage with local authorities and other stakeholders in the preparation of their five year plan in her most recent correspondence: It would be helpful to understand how this involvement will take place and if it is the intention of the PCT to engage with local authorities in a similar fashion.

4.3 There is also some disappointment that the statement makes reference only to ‘dedicated project support’ for the stakeholder working group while we would prefer to see an actual project manager post, however we note the recent correspondence from Louise Robson (to the Leader of the Council and Hilary Armstrong MP see attached) that this issue is still under consideration and we would request that the issue should return to the stakeholder group to explore this option further before any final arrangements are confirmed.


5 RECOMMENDATIONS

5.1 The Council accepts the invitation to become a member of the Stakeholder working group as outlined within the draft paper circulated with this report.

5.2 The Council continues to support the role of Shotley Bridge Community Hospital and endorses the positive commitments made toward the hospital as referred to in the draft statement and highlighted in section four of this report.

5.3 The Council continues to request the appointment of a project lead to work with the stakeholder group.

Councillor Owen Temple

I understand that Shotley Bridge Hospital is to be "discussed" at the Derwentside District Council Meeting at 6.00 pm on September 25th. Make a point of contacting your councillor to let him or her know what you think.

Try to get to the meeting to make sure that your feelings are voiced (after checking that Press and Public are not going to be excluded). What we need is a head of steam where community and councillors act together and spur each other on in positive support of the Hospital and its role in our community's healthcare.

The Tribal Report does make some very significant points, and may point directions in which the hospital should go.

We need a positive outlook about how the facility can be developed for better health care in our community because we will not return the Hospital to the General Hospital status it once had. There is, however, scope for improved and extended day surgery and outpatients provision if an imaginative approach is taken, and if local GPs and hospital consultants (as well as neighbouring NHS trusts) are engaged positively in the process.

MP and Council JOINT APPROACH

Last week we were able to meet with Hilary Armstrong MP for a second time this Summer to express our concerns over the future of Shotley Bridge Hospital.

At the end of the meeting we agreed that a joint letter from ourselves could be a way of ensuring that the local health trusts understood the depth of concern that local people feel and that a way to answer their questions was to produce a clear statement of intent.

This was the press release we agreed today and we hope local newspapers will run the story.

Alex Watson Council Leader “I know that local people want to see Shotley Bridge Hospital thrive and we as a local council want to be part of making the best of Shotley Bridge as a first class community hospital.”

Hilary Armstrong revealed “Alex and I have written to ask for a period of stability at the hospital and the involvement of staff and patients in a stakeholder group which is tasked with taking forward the positive ideas from the Tribal reports and turning them into real service improvements”

We were able to add to our statement that the County Council would also be backing that position:

County Council members meeting with Hilary Armstrong today endorsed the contents of the letter which they hope will see the greater involvement of GPs in particular who can bring a solid understanding of local needs and the service developments that will make Shotley Bridge Hospital a success story.

I hope we can expect a positive response from the chief executives of the two trusts involved and they in turn can rely on our support for any actions that will help our hospital.

Alex Watson

GP Backing for Shotley Bridge Hospital

To follow on from the last article on the site we have had the opportunity to meet with the lead GP in Derwentside who has the role of chair of Practice based Commissioners in Derwentside.This group have the task of deciding what services they want to purchase for patients in Derwentside along with the County Durham PCT. I think its fair to say the GPs have a good deal of influence but obviously there are others who make decisions that impact on us here in the District.

We thought that it may be useful to ask for a statement from the GPs as to their intentions or attitudes toward the hospital and we are grateful to Dr Gallwey for circulating this statement around her colleagues.

The Practice Based Commissioning Cluster for Derwentside supports the continuation of the present level of services in Shotley Bridge Hospital. Within last year’s LDP we have identified a need for increased services for the elderly to reduce emergency admissions and this requires a continuation of the current range of services including the availability of inpatient facilities.

Our commissioning plans for 2007-2008 have identified future services which will need accommodation and will improve access for Derwentside patients.
We welcome the opportunity presented by the Tribal Report to explore options around the future ownership of Shotley Bridge.

I think this will give us all some hope for the future with the GPs taking such a positive stance and I know Hilary Armstrong is also intent on arranging a meeting with Dr Gallwey to find out for herself what the local doctors believe is the way forward on the hospital.

In answer to the posts about what we can do as individuals well I will be asking our representatives at the stakeholder group to request patient/ public involvement and I hope the other partners will agree to that.

What form that takes,if successful ,I am not sure but we can perhaps consider a forum or group of some sort that supports the hospital ,acts as a pressure group or even looks toward some more positive role if it were seen as possible to have some form of community ownership or involvement.

Alex Watson

WARD CLOSURE

In answer to recent posts ,it has been difficult to publish the Tribal reports as there has been some disagreement about how and when the reports should be published : We at the local council have distributed the executive summaries of both reports to all of our councillors and every member of the Derwentside Partnership has been sent a copy, other bodies will decide themselves what to do within their own organisations. At Derwentside we would welcome an agreement to make the documents fully available to the public on our website

We as a local council have not stopped trying to move issues on the hospital up the agenda and in recent press articles I set out what I felt were the communities' fears as well as what we would be doing to seek answers to the questions everyone is asking about the future of the hospital.

Here is the most recent article for those who missed it.

The announcement of a ward closure at Shotley Bridge hospital brought more uncertainty for staff and great concern for patients, many have written or rang my office in the last week to tell me of their worries and fears for what is still a valued and much loved facility here in Derwentside.
It has to be said few people who speak to me believe that there is any hope of the trust re-opening ward 4 and consider the mothballing explanation as nothing more than a ruse to sugar coat the pill.
Members of staff have told me not only of their personal positions but also their concern for the rest of the hospital’s services which they feel have been put at further risk by each service withdrawal. There has also been anger at the reasons given for the closure, one letter asked

“If a natural reduction in patients is the explanation can they (the Foundation Trust) explain what these occurrences were,so that the nursing community at large can benefit from such revolutionary working practices?”

The council however has always believed there is a future for the hospital and with funding from the Derwentside Partnership, two reports have been prepared by health consultants which support that view: This district has a population of over 86000 and is expected to grow over the next ten years, we feel sure that government policy over’ care closer to home’ means community hospitals like Shotley Bridge should be part of the plan to provide that care.

Over the next two weeks we will be meeting our GPs, health bosses and the MP whose constituency covers Shotley Bridge to ask what can we do to help secure its future: We think part of the answer is local involvement in running our hospital and that will mean people like you, who are reading this article because they care about Shotley Bridge Hospital, lending your support.
If we can gain the backing of staff and GPs within the area I’m sure we can make a difference

Alex Watson